Do not ever say you are a rescue diver

[Bob DBF]

For several years I did use a Fenzy. You see it in my Avatar. It was labeled "le parachute du plongeur".
It was NOT a BCD: no connection with the tank, no power inflator.
It had to be kept empty in normal conditions, and inflated with its small air tank just in case of an emergency.
Wearing a full Fenzy you float head up. No risk of drowning...
Of course I did modify it, installing a hose for filling it from the main tank and using it also as a BCD.
But I maintained the small tank and its safety function.

Before the BC, here in the US, we use a Mae West, which was a floatation device activated by a CO2 cartridge, or orally inflated, named after the life vest made famous in WWII. It was not a BC, but eventually adapted as one by some, and becoming the horse collar BC.

Mae West

Horse collar BC

The divers body is the center of mass and hangs below the horsecollar in the same manner a life jacket, which they were designed from.

 

[John C. Ratliff]

Yes, in the ol' days...

That's why I designed the Para-Sea BC.

SeaRat

 

[Wibble]

No, you don't get to redefine words to suit your point. Self-dependent is fine, and may be with or without a buddy, but solo means without a buddy.

We agree.

My use of the term:
"Isn't every dive a solo dive regardless of diving with buddies or not?"

Maybe could have been written as:
"Every dive is a self reliant dive where you plan, kit up, dive, monitor and react to your individual circumstances in a way that doesn’t rely upon anyone else to help or assist you nor adversely interfere with the team goals catering for failures and reasonable exceptional events and enables you to complete the dive in the event of team separation whilst being able to assist team members should they need help"

Prefer the more pithy "every dive’s a solo dive".

 

[DeepSeaExplorer]

Yeah… it’s like that “every dive is a deco dive” BS that was going around here a few years back. There are numerous posts with people trying to argue that all different types of non-solo dives are actually solo dives. There were even instructors claiming that they were diving solo because they were teaching a class. They were literally in the water with six other people, but they were diving solo. So let’s please not go there again.

 

[BoltSnap]

So let’s please not go there again

No, let's go back there again, why not?

it’s like that “every dive is a deco dive” BS that was going around here a few years back

What's wrong with saying so? Please be precise.

There are numerous posts with people trying to argue that all different types of non-solo dives are actually solo dives. There were even instructors claiming that they were diving solo because they were teaching a class.

What's wrong with saying so? The instructor doesn't have a specific buddy and he is merely watching others who are uncertified divers.

 

[DeepSeaExplorer]

So if an instructor needed air, none of his students would share air? If he passed out, no one would drag him to the surface. Also, if the instructor is solo, wouldn’t that be a major rule violation? So instructors would have to work in buddy teams then right? Not having a specific buddy is not solo. its a Gang Dive.

Same same with deco. If every dive is a deco dive, then an instructor would be taking basic open water students on a deco dive. What agency would allow that?

 

[jborg]

The problem with changing the meaning of words is then we need new words for what they meant before. "I went diving solo with my buddies yesterday, today I think I'll dive solo by myself for a change." "Yesterday's deco dive was just a quick dip to 5m to check the equipment, all good so today I'm ready to do a deco dive with stops on the way up, solo with my team of course."

 

[Angelo Farina]

Diving solo for me means mostly that I do not have to take care for others. When working as a DM or instructor I was not diving solo, as I had to take care of customers or students...
Which of course is NOT buddy diving!
Let's use set theory for better understanding, In the following drawing you see the large set of scuba diving, which contains the subsets of solo diving, buddy diving and instructor-DM diving. These two subsets intersect, and the intersection part is when I was diving together with my wife (who is also a DM and instructor) guiding a group of students-costomers. So we were two instructors as buddies, and responsible for a group of other divers.

 

[boriss]

So if an instructor needed air, none of his students would share air? If he passed out, no one would drag him to the surface. Also, if the instructor is solo, wouldn’t that be a major rule violation? So instructors would have to work in buddy teams then right? Not having a specific buddy is not solo. its a Gang Dive.

Same same with deco. If every dive is a deco dive, then an instructor would be taking basic open water students on a deco dive. What agency would allow that?

You make a lot of assumptions. It really depends on who those students are, the environment, training, etc. Are you solo, as in alone? No. Can you rely on them in an emergency? It depends. Not in all cases, and thus despite not being alone, he can't depend on others, thus "solo."

To use an analogy, there's a reason there are at least two pilots on commercial flights. If something happens to one the other can take over. It doesn't matter that there are 200 people in the main cabin who can, in theory, take over the controls. They don't have the training for it, even if some of them have a pilots license. This is an extreme example, but hope it drives home the point.

Next, every dive isn't a mandatory decompression dive, but there is decompression involved. This is why you can't get on a plane right after your NDL dive and why a precautionary safety stop is taught by all the agencies.

There's no need to be obtuse and treat things as completely black and white. The reality is that those statements are true, even if they don't apply to most cases.

 

[Wibble]

I prefer this:

Two solo divers can work together just as easily as working apart.